The Matt Walsh Show - March 16, 2024


I'm No Poet, But I Know This Is Not A Poem [Weekly Walsh Original]

Hosted by
Matt Walsh
Mentioned
Vinay Krishnan Ativan Laundry Rafa
Ep. 1326 - The Radical Wokeness Of The Video Game Industry Ep. 1327 - Police Departments Are Obliterating Their Fitness Requirements In Order To Recruit More Women

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

217.74

Word count

1,980

Sentence count

152

Harmful content

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A poem from Vinay Krishnan, a writer, organizer, and lawyer living in Brooklyn, has become one of the most popular pieces of work on social media in recent memory, and it's been retweeted more than 30,000 times and received over 20 million views.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Well, I should tell you that I actually had other plans for the Daily Cancellation today,
00:00:03.300 but then this morning I happened to see something pop up on my Twitter feed
00:00:06.640 that was so bad and lame that I had no choice but to change course.
00:00:11.420 So someone named Vinay Krishnan, who described himself as a writer, organizer, and attorney living in Brooklyn,
00:00:17.700 decided to share something that he calls poetry.
00:00:20.700 And apparently Vinay fashions himself a poet on top of all of his other self-ordained titles.
00:00:25.060 This particular piece of poetry, I'm sad to report, has at this moment 30,000 retweets and 20 million views.
00:00:32.460 There are hundreds of comments saying things like this, quote,
00:00:35.620 This is heartbreaking and lovely.
00:00:37.700 End quote.
00:00:38.380 I would have cried reading this, but I'm just too tired to cry.
00:00:41.940 End quote.
00:00:42.720 It's fantastic and breaks my heart at the same time.
00:00:45.320 And also, quote, I've been waiting for a poem like this, whether from me or someone else.
00:00:50.600 So that's what the people are saying. 1.00
00:00:52.540 Most people are idiots. 1.00
00:00:54.300 Some people, at least, are saying that it's lovely, beautiful, heartbreaking. 1.00
00:00:59.540 It's the poem we've been waiting for.
00:01:01.480 It's the poem of the ages.
00:01:03.720 The poem of our time.
00:01:05.720 And it's also easily the most popular poem posted to Twitter in quite some time,
00:01:09.160 which perhaps isn't saying much, but another accolade to add to the list.
00:01:13.220 Certainly you would hope that for a poem to be viewed so many times,
00:01:17.480 and for it to be reposted by so many people,
00:01:19.080 and for it to receive such glowing reviews,
00:01:20.740 for it to reduce readers to tears of joy and sorrow,
00:01:24.480 it must be quite powerful.
00:01:29.280 Let's find out.
00:01:30.120 Here's the poem from Vinay Krishnan, the organizer from Brooklyn.
00:01:33.140 It's titled,
00:01:34.560 There's Laundry to Do and a Genocide to Stop.
00:01:37.280 So things are not starting off very strong based on the title,
00:01:39.640 but let's not judge a poem by its title.
00:01:41.440 Let's venture on unafraid.
00:01:43.500 We must be brave.
00:01:44.320 We must be courageous.
00:01:46.280 And here's the poem.
00:01:47.660 There's laundry to do and a genocide to stop.
00:01:50.360 I have to eat better and also avoid a plague.
00:01:52.680 My rent went up $150.
00:01:54.700 I'll need to pick up more shifts.
00:01:56.220 20 people died in Rafa this morning,
00:01:57.960 and every major news outlet is stretching the limits of passive voice
00:02:00.520 to suggest whole families may have leaped up through the air
00:02:02.920 at missiles that otherwise had the right of way.
00:02:05.000 I just got a notification that my student loan payments
00:02:07.340 are starting up again, and my phone isn't charged.
00:02:09.780 My cousin got COVID for a fourth time
00:02:11.440 and could no longer work or walk or even feed himself.
00:02:14.820 The person across from me on the L train
00:02:16.440 seems to fashion themselves a punk rock revolutionary,
00:02:19.000 but they're not wearing a face mask.
00:02:21.020 And that's the kind of cognitive dissonance
00:02:22.720 that makes me want to steal batteries.
00:02:26.420 Fascists keep winning primaries for both parties,
00:02:28.680 and I think I gained a few pounds.
00:02:31.840 The CDC just announced there are no more speed limits on highways,
00:02:34.620 and I think this Ativan is finally hitting.
00:02:37.200 This NYPD farmer's market only sells bad apples.
00:02:39.940 Have you heard that one?
00:02:41.520 Listen, it's warm today.
00:02:43.120 Too warm for March.
00:02:44.320 But I don't have time to think through the implications
00:02:46.600 because there's laundry to do
00:02:48.600 and a genocide to stop.
00:02:51.840 The end.
00:02:52.840 There's the poem.
00:02:53.580 I mean, once again, as always,
00:02:54.820 I've made it way too good with my stirring rendition.
00:02:58.380 I gotta stop doing that.
00:03:00.220 I've almost, with my performance,
00:03:01.900 I've almost tricked you into thinking that was a good poem.
00:03:03.620 I almost did.
00:03:04.480 But it's not.
00:03:05.580 You know, in fact, you have to say at the start
00:03:07.380 and again at the end that it is a poem,
00:03:09.060 or else you would have no idea that it was a poem.
00:03:11.760 Like, that's a good indication that it's a bad poem,
00:03:13.960 as if when you post it and show people,
00:03:16.100 you have to tell them.
00:03:17.080 You have to say,
00:03:17.780 here's a poem.
00:03:19.860 Because with a good poem,
00:03:21.060 or really just a poem, a real poem,
00:03:23.600 you don't have to tell people it's a poem.
00:03:24.820 They'll get it when they read it.
00:03:26.480 The thing is, if you're not told it's a poem
00:03:27.620 and you read that,
00:03:28.280 you think that you're reading
00:03:29.200 just like a random assortment of YouTube comments.
00:03:32.100 But no, that was a poem.
00:03:33.820 A poem that if it made you cry at all,
00:03:35.800 it should only make you cry because you want it to stop.
00:03:37.860 My student loan payments are starting up again
00:03:39.600 and my phone isn't charged.
00:03:41.180 But it just goes on and on and refuses to stop.
00:03:44.440 Have you noticed that big tech companies
00:03:45.800 are masquerading as privacy companies?
00:03:48.000 They'll tell you to just fix your privacy settings,
00:03:50.260 turn off app tracking, and you're all good.
00:03:51.980 Well, big tech feeds on your information.
00:03:54.100 Sure, maybe they'll release a feature now and then
00:03:55.820 that does some good,
00:03:56.760 but collecting and selling off your data
00:03:58.540 is in big tech's nature.
00:04:00.200 They can't stop themselves
00:04:01.040 from looking at what you do online.
00:04:02.980 To protect myself against big tech's prying eyes,
00:04:04.960 I use ExpressVPN.
00:04:06.520 ExpressVPN app on your computer or phone,
00:04:08.600 you're hiding your unique IP address
00:04:10.100 so that websites can't use that address
00:04:12.060 to find out your real location
00:04:13.400 or track what you do online.
00:04:15.080 On top of that, ExpressVPN encrypts
00:04:16.440 and reroutes 100% of your online activity
00:04:18.200 so your internet provider,
00:04:19.160 your Wi-Fi admin, and hackers can't see it.
00:04:21.260 The best part, though, is how easy it is to use.
00:04:23.180 It just takes one click to protect all your devices,
00:04:25.000 plus one ExpressVPN subscription
00:04:26.780 covers up to five devices at the same time
00:04:28.980 so you can protect your entire family, too.
00:04:31.180 Get the VPN that I trust to protect my online privacy.
00:04:33.720 Visit expressvpn.com slash walshyt
00:04:36.760 and get an extra three months free
00:04:38.860 on a one-year package.
00:04:40.220 That's exprssvpn.com slash walshyt.
00:04:44.300 So let me just make a few observations here.
00:04:46.180 First of all, this may be better titled
00:04:48.040 Non-Sequitur the Poem
00:04:49.660 because it's full of sentences
00:04:50.800 where the second part of the sentence
00:04:52.260 has nothing to do with the first.
00:04:53.940 For example,
00:04:54.880 I just got a notification
00:04:55.660 that my student loan payments are starting up again
00:04:57.480 and my phone isn't charged.
00:04:59.260 That's one sentence.
00:05:00.200 But how are those two things related?
00:05:01.780 And what is he saying?
00:05:02.540 Is he saying that he got a notification
00:05:03.760 that his student loan payments are starting up again
00:05:05.500 and he also got a notification
00:05:07.080 that his phone isn't charged?
00:05:08.640 Or is he saying that he got a notification
00:05:10.040 that student loans are starting up again
00:05:11.240 and also on a separate note,
00:05:13.220 his phone isn't charged?
00:05:14.160 Never mind the fact that if the phone isn't charged,
00:05:16.260 then how are you getting notifications
00:05:17.640 about anything in the first place?
00:05:19.140 The bigger question is,
00:05:20.200 why did you put those two entirely separate thoughts
00:05:22.760 into one sentence
00:05:23.940 without even a comma to distinguish them?
00:05:26.340 In a similar fashion,
00:05:27.040 he tells us that fascists keep winning primaries
00:05:28.900 for both parties
00:05:29.520 and I think I gained a few pounds.
00:05:31.740 So did he gain a few pounds
00:05:33.000 because of the fascists?
00:05:34.420 When he goes to the doctor
00:05:35.320 and the doctor says,
00:05:35.980 you've gained 14 pounds,
00:05:36.900 what happened?
00:05:37.360 Does he respond,
00:05:38.260 oh, well, you know,
00:05:38.960 fascists have been winning primaries?
00:05:40.540 He probably does offer that as an excuse,
00:05:42.460 but still it's a non-sequitur.
00:05:43.520 And of course,
00:05:43.860 the greatest non-sequitur line
00:05:44.960 in the whole thing
00:05:45.420 is the bit about a guy
00:05:46.840 who wants to be punk rock on a subway,
00:05:49.020 but he's not wearing a mask
00:05:50.020 and that makes the writer
00:05:50.880 want to steal batteries.
00:05:55.120 It leaves us only with a question
00:05:56.520 of why his anger
00:05:57.520 towards the guy without a mask
00:05:58.780 would make him want to steal batteries
00:06:00.340 and why batteries specifically?
00:06:03.360 The only sentence
00:06:04.060 in the whole thing that makes sense
00:06:05.040 is the one where he says,
00:06:05.860 the CDC just announced
00:06:06.860 there are no more speed limits on highways
00:06:08.240 than I think Ativan is finally hitting.
00:06:10.280 In that case,
00:06:10.780 we can see the connection.
00:06:11.660 You know,
00:06:11.740 he begins by telling us
00:06:12.660 about some totally imaginary situation
00:06:14.560 where the CDC
00:06:15.720 is abolishing speed limits,
00:06:17.480 I guess,
00:06:18.280 and he ends by telling us
00:06:19.300 that he's under the influence
00:06:20.120 of psychotropic drugs,
00:06:21.200 which explains the hallucinations.
00:06:22.820 So that part makes sense.
00:06:24.780 The main point is that
00:06:25.540 this writer has barely managed
00:06:27.980 to compose a single legitimate
00:06:29.520 and coherent sentence,
00:06:31.280 let alone an entire poem.
00:06:32.960 And so I must once again point out
00:06:34.060 that this is not poetry.
00:06:35.120 You cannot just write
00:06:35.860 a series of run-on sentences,
00:06:37.860 slap a title on it,
00:06:38.920 and call it poetry.
00:06:40.220 Poetry has rhythm,
00:06:41.340 structure, meaning.
00:06:42.600 I'll put it another way.
00:06:43.200 If this is poetry,
00:06:45.040 then everything that's ever been written
00:06:47.080 is poetry.
00:06:48.260 Literally every paragraph
00:06:49.520 ever composed about anything
00:06:51.400 in any context is poetry
00:06:53.020 if this is poetry.
00:06:54.500 An IKEA instruction manual is poetry.
00:06:56.800 An online recipe for lasagna is poetry.
00:06:59.580 When someone calls themselves a poet,
00:07:01.040 in this case,
00:07:01.740 all they mean is that
00:07:02.900 they have the capacity
00:07:03.760 for human speech.
00:07:05.100 Because the poem,
00:07:05.800 to the extent that it's anything at all,
00:07:07.120 is just one long series of complaints.
00:07:10.040 Yet the complaints,
00:07:10.840 like so many complaints these days,
00:07:12.400 vacillate between totally imaginary
00:07:14.580 and incredibly petty.
00:07:16.820 He says that his cousin
00:07:17.680 has been rendered crippled
00:07:19.040 and paraplegic from COVID,
00:07:20.900 which of course didn't happen.
00:07:22.300 He says that the CDC
00:07:23.180 abolished speed limits,
00:07:24.380 which also didn't happen,
00:07:25.360 unfortunately.
00:07:26.320 He says that fascists
00:07:27.260 are winning primaries,
00:07:28.160 which hasn't happened.
00:07:28.960 He says he has to avoid the plague,
00:07:30.540 but there is no plague.
00:07:31.340 And he says that
00:07:31.820 he has to stop a genocide,
00:07:33.500 yet at no point
00:07:34.160 during this man's daily life
00:07:35.200 is he ever confronted
00:07:36.140 with a genocide,
00:07:37.200 much less one that he has to,
00:07:38.820 or can,
00:07:39.560 or would even attempt to stop.
00:07:41.760 The only reality-based complaints
00:07:43.340 in the poem
00:07:43.820 are that the rent has gone up,
00:07:45.180 he's gained a few pounds,
00:07:46.060 it's warm outside,
00:07:47.200 the farmer's market
00:07:48.040 has a subpar supply of apples,
00:07:50.300 and he has to do his laundry.
00:07:51.500 Let me play a sad song for you
00:07:53.620 on the world's smallest violin.
00:07:55.500 And when you boil it down
00:07:56.600 like that,
00:07:57.360 to its essential parts,
00:07:58.680 you see that actually,
00:07:59.780 you know,
00:08:00.100 this guy has it pretty easy.
00:08:02.560 99% of humans on Earth
00:08:03.980 have a harder life than you.
00:08:06.760 And almost none of them
00:08:08.140 are writing poems about it.
00:08:09.580 In fact,
00:08:10.260 your bad poetry,
00:08:11.480 if anything,
00:08:11.960 is only adding
00:08:12.760 to the overall
00:08:14.200 net suffering in the world.
00:08:16.000 You have just made
00:08:16.620 everyone's lives
00:08:17.400 a little bit worse
00:08:18.320 by inflicting 0.76
00:08:19.420 crappy poetry on them. 0.85
00:08:21.220 I could write a poem
00:08:22.180 about the suffering
00:08:23.660 I experienced
00:08:24.500 from reading that poem.
00:08:26.360 In fact,
00:08:26.640 I already have.
00:08:27.440 As established,
00:08:28.140 everything I've said already
00:08:28.940 is a poem by default.
00:08:30.000 That's what happens
00:08:31.340 when you lower
00:08:31.920 the artistic bar
00:08:32.720 to this extent.
00:08:33.340 And that is why
00:08:33.900 Vinay Krishnan
00:08:35.400 and everybody
00:08:36.340 who complimented his poem,
00:08:37.600 all of whom
00:08:38.000 should be legally
00:08:38.660 disqualified from voting
00:08:39.600 and then deported
00:08:40.200 to a moon of Jupiter,
00:08:41.500 are all today
00:08:42.980 canceled.
00:08:44.000 in Spappen of 1972.
00:08:45.900 In the back public.
00:08:48.480 In the back public.
00:08:51.400 In the back public.
00:08:51.900 In the back public.
00:08:53.440 In the back public.
00:08:53.960 For the first group.
00:08:54.520 In the back public.
00:08:55.040 In the back public.
00:08:55.420 For the first group.
00:08:55.640 In the back public.
00:08:56.260 Of course.
00:08:56.480 In the back public.
00:08:56.620 In the back public.
00:08:56.980 In the back public.
00:08:57.200 In the back public.
00:08:57.580 In the back public.
00:08:57.700 In the back public.
00:08:58.060 In the back public.
00:08:58.280 In the back public.
00:08:59.160 In the back public.
00:09:00.120 In the back public.
00:09:00.340 In the back public.
00:09:00.580 In the back public.
00:09:00.740 In the back public.
00:09:00.860 In the back public.
00:09:01.400 In the back public.
00:09:01.440 In the back public.
00:09:02.740 In the back public.
00:09:05.040 In the back public.